OCO-3: NASA Satellite Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Retrievals

OCO-3 Level 2 spatially ordered geolocated retrievals screened using the IMAP-DOAS Preprocessor (IDP), Forward Processing V10 is a NASA dataset from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 instrument deployed to the International Space Station in May 2019. It provides space-based measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide using three high-resolution spectrometers to characterize processes controlling its buildup. The data is processed with a cloud screening algorithm that employs a fast Bayesian retrieval to estimate surface pressure and albedo from molecular oxygen A-band spectra.

Use Cases

• Modeling global carbon dioxide sources and sinks based on high-resolution atmospheric concentration measurements.
• Validating and improving cloud screening algorithms for satellite remote sensing based on the described O2 A-band retrieval method.
• Analyzing spatial and temporal trends in atmospheric greenhouse gases from the International Space Station vantage point.
• Studying the radiative transfer of light in the atmosphere under clear-sky conditions as described by the forward model.

Strengths

• Data is from a dedicated NASA mission (OCO-3) designed for precise atmospheric CO2 measurement.
• Version 10 is the current, superseding version, indicating active curation.
• Incorporates three independently calibrated spectrometers measuring specific wavelength bands (1.61µm, 2.06µm, 0.76µm).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The forward model assumes clear-sky conditions, which may limit accuracy in scenes with cloud or aerosol.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing via the OCO-3 instrument on the International Space Station.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 23:01:00.137832; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global coverage from the International Space Station orbit.